Sometimes There Really Are No Words
February 5, 2015 1:04 PM Subscribe
Yesterday the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a report on ISIS's treatment of children. (Warning, serious triggers follow). The Committee reported that ISIS has sold abducted Iraqi children at market as sex slaves, killed other children by way of crucifixion, live burial and beheading, and used " mentally challenged" and very young children as suicide bombers.
This post was deleted for the following reason: This is a terrible, horrible thing that happened, but not much to discuss here beyond the atrocities -- mathowie
A while back they doused a captured Jordanian pilot with gasoline, locked him in a cage, set him on fire (which eventually killed him, in screaming pain), and then used a bulldozer to cover what was left of him.
It was all captured on video and they released it a few days ago.
They also threw some accused homosexual men off the top of a building. When one of them survived it, the observing crowd then stoned him to death.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:11 PM on February 5, 2015
It was all captured on video and they released it a few days ago.
They also threw some accused homosexual men off the top of a building. When one of them survived it, the observing crowd then stoned him to death.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:11 PM on February 5, 2015
Read a related story yesterday. I'm unable to imagine a scenario where any of these actions can be rationalized. These people must think they're doing the right thing, but how do you convince someone that crucifying a child or burying them alive is the right thing to do? My brain just locks up when I even think about it.
This is what weeping was invented for.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:16 PM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
This is what weeping was invented for.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:16 PM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
These people must think they're doing the right thing, but how do you convince someone that crucifying a child or burying them alive is the right thing to do?
This is the thing. Calling these people monsters is too simple. They're people all right.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:20 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
This is the thing. Calling these people monsters is too simple. They're people all right.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:20 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
ISIS has pretty much become the Khmer Rouge of Mesopotamia.
And surprise, surprise- it comes after about two decades of pretty terrible US foreign policy decisions.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:22 PM on February 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
And surprise, surprise- it comes after about two decades of pretty terrible US foreign policy decisions.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:22 PM on February 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
Whenever I hear about this stuff I just can't even imagine what kind of damage these people must have to allow them to do this kind of thing. I can conceptualize certain terrorist actions, like Palestinians who are radicalized because a stray bomb killed their family. I get that. I don't think it serves any good ends, but I at least kinda understand where it comes from. But this. . . I can't imagine what happens to people that they would do this.
posted by dellsolace at 1:23 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by dellsolace at 1:23 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Well, ISIS was born out of an environment that has seen basically constant warfare, lawlessness and ethnic cleansing since 2003. Before that were brutal despotic regimes. First in Iraq, now in Syria. The people who created ISIS have grown up in a world where safety comes from everyone around you being more terrified of you than you are of them.
The same thing is responsible for the horrific escalation of violence among the drug cartels.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:28 PM on February 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
The same thing is responsible for the horrific escalation of violence among the drug cartels.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:28 PM on February 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
I can't imagine what happens to people that they would do this.
There is no explaining it. Many, many people suffer horrible atrocities, but fail to go on to commit more atrocities as a result. What you have in ISIS is a unique blend of severely damaged individuals, led by pure psychopaths. Underlying all this horror is a deep base of religious tension among varying sects - some of whose leaders have stood passively by and watched this unfold. It's a sick, sick situation that is beyond negative attributing adjectives to describe.
That said, no matter the root causes, these ISIS psychopaths needs to be reduced to ash, every single one of them - the sooner, the better.
posted by Vibrissae at 1:30 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
There is no explaining it. Many, many people suffer horrible atrocities, but fail to go on to commit more atrocities as a result. What you have in ISIS is a unique blend of severely damaged individuals, led by pure psychopaths. Underlying all this horror is a deep base of religious tension among varying sects - some of whose leaders have stood passively by and watched this unfold. It's a sick, sick situation that is beyond negative attributing adjectives to describe.
That said, no matter the root causes, these ISIS psychopaths needs to be reduced to ash, every single one of them - the sooner, the better.
posted by Vibrissae at 1:30 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
So much of this stuff in the media now we're all meant to get motivated for another war against bad guys.
posted by colie at 1:37 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by colie at 1:37 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
There is no explaining it.
It must have just fallen out of the sky then.
posted by colie at 1:42 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
It must have just fallen out of the sky then.
posted by colie at 1:42 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
That said, no matter the root causes, these ISIS psychopaths needs to be reduced to ash, every single one of them - the sooner, the better.
"We bombed our way into this mess, and by gum, we'll bomb our way out of it!"
Where's Curtis LeMay when you need him? He'd understand what that really meant, and would be willing to carry it out. All you need to do is just kill every Sunni Arab in Upper Mesopotamia. Problem solved.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:44 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
"We bombed our way into this mess, and by gum, we'll bomb our way out of it!"
Where's Curtis LeMay when you need him? He'd understand what that really meant, and would be willing to carry it out. All you need to do is just kill every Sunni Arab in Upper Mesopotamia. Problem solved.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:44 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
The really shitty thing about all this is leftists saying that any desire to go after ISIS is just blah blah US imperialism. No, actually, evil does exist in the world and it would be great to be fighting it.
posted by corb at 1:46 PM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by corb at 1:46 PM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
So much of this stuff in the media now we're all meant to get motivated for another war against bad guys.
That's a false equivalency. This isn't the lead-up to the Iraq War, where faulty intelligence led us to destabilize a relatively stable regime. Iraq is already as destabilized as it's going to get. ISIS is actively sowing chaos and bloodshed in Iraq and neighboring countries. Saddam Huissein, for all the horrible things he's done over the years, was, by the 2000s, doing a decent job of holding Iraq together. Now ISIS (thanks in part to the prep work Bush did by taking out Saddam; Thanks, Bush!) are actively tearing the country apart.
Look, I'm usually not a fan of getting involved in overseas conflicts, but this one's on us. We paved the way for Isis in Iraq, the least we can do is help root it out. Usually there's some degree of moral ambiguity in these things; in this case, there's really not. ISIS is as close to pure, chaotic evil as you can get, and eradicating them can only make the world a better place.
posted by Green Winnebago at 1:46 PM on February 5, 2015 [6 favorites]
That's a false equivalency. This isn't the lead-up to the Iraq War, where faulty intelligence led us to destabilize a relatively stable regime. Iraq is already as destabilized as it's going to get. ISIS is actively sowing chaos and bloodshed in Iraq and neighboring countries. Saddam Huissein, for all the horrible things he's done over the years, was, by the 2000s, doing a decent job of holding Iraq together. Now ISIS (thanks in part to the prep work Bush did by taking out Saddam; Thanks, Bush!) are actively tearing the country apart.
Look, I'm usually not a fan of getting involved in overseas conflicts, but this one's on us. We paved the way for Isis in Iraq, the least we can do is help root it out. Usually there's some degree of moral ambiguity in these things; in this case, there's really not. ISIS is as close to pure, chaotic evil as you can get, and eradicating them can only make the world a better place.
posted by Green Winnebago at 1:46 PM on February 5, 2015 [6 favorites]
For all those wishing to remember that Syria and Iraq have been brutalized over many years of war, also remember that vast numbers of ISIS members are not native to Syria and Iraq. Many of them grew up in safe, comfortable, and stable surroundings, yet their deeds are no less awful. They are the lowest and most cruelly murderous people the world has seen in generations, clothed in a tissue of religious justification.
We should be thankful that they are recklessly keen on dying.
posted by Thing at 1:47 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
We should be thankful that they are recklessly keen on dying.
posted by Thing at 1:47 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
ISIS has pretty much become the Khmer Rouge of Mesopotamia.
Don't get too high up on your horse, white guy.
Normalized brutality is a feature of many cultures. And before you start saying "well the west has outgrown it, though" - Has it really ?
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:48 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Don't get too high up on your horse, white guy.
Normalized brutality is a feature of many cultures. And before you start saying "well the west has outgrown it, though" - Has it really ?
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:48 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Look, I'm usually not a fan of getting involved in overseas conflicts, but this one's on us. We paved the way for Isis in Iraq, the least we can do is help root it out.
You say that as if there's some sort of guarantee that we'd win and not just make the situation worse, again, some more.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:48 PM on February 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
You say that as if there's some sort of guarantee that we'd win and not just make the situation worse, again, some more.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:48 PM on February 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
evil does exist in the world
The US military pioneered the use of porno torture, with dogs and buggery and fire and soldiers doing selfies next to the dead bodies, at Abu Ghraib and DVDs of it were sold in markets all over the middle east. Don't you remember that?
posted by colie at 1:48 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
The US military pioneered the use of porno torture, with dogs and buggery and fire and soldiers doing selfies next to the dead bodies, at Abu Ghraib and DVDs of it were sold in markets all over the middle east. Don't you remember that?
posted by colie at 1:48 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
No, actually, evil does exist in the world and it would be great to be fighting it.
I agree- it would help if we hadn't created the conditions in which it appeared, and we should try not to reproduce those conditions on a grander scale in our response.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:49 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
I agree- it would help if we hadn't created the conditions in which it appeared, and we should try not to reproduce those conditions on a grander scale in our response.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:49 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
Pogo_Fuzzybutt,
I normally agree with you on a lot of things, but did you even read the next sentence in my post? Do you understand the parallels I'm drawing with the Khmer Rouge?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:51 PM on February 5, 2015
I normally agree with you on a lot of things, but did you even read the next sentence in my post? Do you understand the parallels I'm drawing with the Khmer Rouge?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:51 PM on February 5, 2015
The US military pioneered the use of porno torture, with dogs and buggery and fire and soldiers doing selfies next to the dead bodies, at Abu Ghraib and DVDs of it were sold in markets all over the middle east. Don't you remember that?
No thread should be a discussion of the moral equivalence between Lynndie England and the crucifixion of children.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:53 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
No thread should be a discussion of the moral equivalence between Lynndie England and the crucifixion of children.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:53 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
All I can say is that I am very, very thankful for the rule of law in this country, however imperfectly applied. When your sense of justice is constantly assaulted by everyone around you, and the only measure of personal security is what you can assault out of your milieu at the point of a gun, and everyone around you feels the same way, and it goes on for years at a time...Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan.
posted by Captain l'escalier at 1:54 PM on February 5, 2015
posted by Captain l'escalier at 1:54 PM on February 5, 2015
Cold, creeping horror is the realization that at the same time that ISIL/ISIS is actively fundraising through violence, the international market for child pornography is lucrative, growing, and overwhelmingly spread by word of mouth through online digital media, the same methods that ISIS/ISIL uses to distribute its propaganda. ISIS/ISIL could easily corner the market.
posted by nicebookrack at 1:54 PM on February 5, 2015
posted by nicebookrack at 1:54 PM on February 5, 2015
More seriously, ISIS will have a constituency as long as every other power in the region is dedicated to denying the Sunni Arabs of Iraq and Syria their own state. The region is already completely fractured on sectarian and ethnic lines, and there is no going back to a world where Kurd, Sunni and Shia could live together on the same street in Mosul. At least not for the foreseeable future. What this means is that nobody is protecting Sunni Arabs from sectarian or ethnic violence except ISIS. They are surrounded on all sides by Assad, the Shia thugs running Baghdad, Iran, Kurdistan and Turkey, with their kin in Jordan helping their neighbours continue to prey on them, and the US providing air support.
No matter how brutal ISIS gets, they will still get support. When you are surrounded by genocidal hatred, hell looks comfortable.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:55 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
No matter how brutal ISIS gets, they will still get support. When you are surrounded by genocidal hatred, hell looks comfortable.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:55 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
No, actually, evil does exist in the world and it would be great to be fighting it.
As Reagan learned, boots on the ground with no understanding and no chance of success leads to boots in caskets.
posted by surplus at 1:56 PM on February 5, 2015
As Reagan learned, boots on the ground with no understanding and no chance of success leads to boots in caskets.
posted by surplus at 1:56 PM on February 5, 2015
We paved the way for Isis in Iraq, the least we can do is help root it out.
How? At this point I don't see an effectual move much short of a full scale military occupation. Which no one, I think, would pull off successfully, have credibility/be allowed (US gonna do it? Iran? Syria?), or be interested in doing.
Yay bombs. Think of all the wars won with air power alone.
posted by PMdixon at 1:56 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
How? At this point I don't see an effectual move much short of a full scale military occupation. Which no one, I think, would pull off successfully, have credibility/be allowed (US gonna do it? Iran? Syria?), or be interested in doing.
Yay bombs. Think of all the wars won with air power alone.
posted by PMdixon at 1:56 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
There comes a point where you find yourself thinking - I don't care any more, I just want to turn every square foot of the ground these people walk on into radioactive rubble.
Actually, I'd be happy -- happier, even -- with them all locked up in a place where trained therapists can repair their broken minds. If the free world had million-strong armies of those and the means to deploy them, then fuck post-colonial guilt - we're going in.
But we don't, and these are well-funded militias with lots of weapons, so it's back to option 1. Or a realistic version thereof. Whatever godforsaken mess gets made of a full-blown military intervention into one of the legitimate hell-holes of the world, Which nobody actually wants - I don't buy the idea that there's some drumbeat of propaganda going on to whip us into compliance, because there is simply no imaginable upside. Nobody in Washington or London is looking at Afghanistan and Iraq and saying "Well, that worked out for us, let's do it some more". And these are UN reports.
All of the consequences are unpleasant - we'd be either defending or sucked into fighting the Syrian regime, for one thing - it's just that the alternative of not doing anything effective against ISIS would seem even worse.
posted by Devonian at 1:58 PM on February 5, 2015
Actually, I'd be happy -- happier, even -- with them all locked up in a place where trained therapists can repair their broken minds. If the free world had million-strong armies of those and the means to deploy them, then fuck post-colonial guilt - we're going in.
But we don't, and these are well-funded militias with lots of weapons, so it's back to option 1. Or a realistic version thereof. Whatever godforsaken mess gets made of a full-blown military intervention into one of the legitimate hell-holes of the world, Which nobody actually wants - I don't buy the idea that there's some drumbeat of propaganda going on to whip us into compliance, because there is simply no imaginable upside. Nobody in Washington or London is looking at Afghanistan and Iraq and saying "Well, that worked out for us, let's do it some more". And these are UN reports.
All of the consequences are unpleasant - we'd be either defending or sucked into fighting the Syrian regime, for one thing - it's just that the alternative of not doing anything effective against ISIS would seem even worse.
posted by Devonian at 1:58 PM on February 5, 2015
The US attempting to personally eradicate ISIS would require boots on the ground as a practical measure, would likely fail and give birth to something worse, and would 100% guaranteed lead to our being more hated in the region even if we succeeded.
ISIS the organization is not something the US can bomb into oblivion, or really engage successfully. The best we can do is take away their toys and let their neighbors do the work for us.
ISIS the possessor of tanks, armored vehicles, and helicopters is something the US can bomb into oblivion, cheaply, and is about the only action we are capable of taking in that part of the world where someone would actually appreciate our interference (the Kurds, in this case, but at the cost of pissing off Turkey).
posted by Ryvar at 1:58 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
ISIS the organization is not something the US can bomb into oblivion, or really engage successfully. The best we can do is take away their toys and let their neighbors do the work for us.
ISIS the possessor of tanks, armored vehicles, and helicopters is something the US can bomb into oblivion, cheaply, and is about the only action we are capable of taking in that part of the world where someone would actually appreciate our interference (the Kurds, in this case, but at the cost of pissing off Turkey).
posted by Ryvar at 1:58 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
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